Tired of Extremes

I tend to read a lot of news and do a good job of keeping up with what's happening around the world. I sometimes question myself as to why I bother because the news just frustrates me.  I should be specific, the news in the US frustrates me. I grew up in the US, and then moved to Canada when I was 24. I spent the next 20 years there and then moved my husband and children back to the US 4 years ago due to family considerations. Why am I telling you this? My time in Canada allowed me to get the perspective of living outside the US and although Canada and the US share similarities they are quite different. Canadians hate to be compared to Americans, and most Americans don't really care what happens north of the border. One of the things I miss the most is the lack of extremes in Canada. It seems that we live in a time when Ronald Reagan is considered too liberal for many on the right. How did we get here? When did both sides move so far apart that we can no longer have any sensible dialogue about important issues. Over the past year we have heard outrageous comments about everything from rape, to immigration and to prenatal screenings to name a few. Believe me I could go on.  
Today I saw an article which described how the father of Jesse Lewis, one of the children murdered at Sandy Hook, was heckled by gun rights advocates while speaking at an open forum on gun control. How much more disrespectful can you get? I am so sad for this man who has just suffered the loss of his son. He has the courage to come forward to speak out and share his opinion and these people cannot give him the respect to voice his opinion. I may not like guns and may not agree with gun rights advocates, but they have every right to their opinion and to voice it without being belittled or heckled. This is what I mean by extremes. When will we as a nation start to actively listen to each other and stop shouting each other down?  As I sit here tonight writing this, and making dinner for my family I am saddened that the parents of the Sandy Hook victims cannot be at home doing the same with their children. Some of them have courageously stood up to voice their opinion on gun control and this is how they are treated. Shame on those who did this. I wonder how these people would feel if their son or daughter was shot dead in their classroom and they had to go and identify their children? I wonder how they would like it if they had to see their children's little bodies full of bullet holes, or in the case of Noah Pozner, have half their jaw missing? I just don't know how we will solve the multitude of problems in this country if we cannot listen to each other.